Autodesk Flame Family 2018.3 expands

Autodesk released Tuesday, Oct. 24 its third update for the Flame 2018 family of 3D visual effects (VFX) and finishing software.

The software, which includes Flame, Flare, Flame Assist and Lustre. Flame 2018.3, empowers creative professionals to explore new, more efficient ways of working in post, with feature enhancements that offer greater pipeline flexibility, speed and support for emerging formats and technology.

Beta customers given advance access to Flame 2018.3 share their experiences with the latest release in production:

"Flame continues to be the top editorial and VFX solution out there, and 2018.3 is one of the best releases yet. Vector-based tracking will be transformative and has the potential to save hours, even days of work," Out of House VFX Artist David Stern said. "The new release also includes more advanced selective tools that increase options from lightbox effects and keys through lightbox; it's amazing."

"The new standalone Python console in Flame 2018.3 is great; together with pybox and Python hooks, it gives us everything we could possibly ask for in a piece of software while allowing us to get better organized and keep our workflow moving," Treehouse Edit Finishing Artist John Fegan said. "We're also excited about the enhanced FBX export with physically based renderer (PBR) for Maya, and motion analysis updates, which are huge. Using motion vector maps, we can now achieve things we couldn't with a planar tracker or 3D track."

"One of the great things about Flame is that Autodesk is continuously delivering features through extension releases like 2018.3 that introduce new problem-solving tools and ways of working, like the Python API integration, which is a huge step forward for Flame," Freelance Compositing Artist Marcel Lemme said. "It brings another toolbox inside to an already great toolbox that I can use to build new solutions and automate processes, rather than do everything by hand, saving days of prep."

Pricing and Availability

Flame Family 2018.3 is available today at no additional cost to customers with a current Flame Family 2018 subscription. For details and pricing, visit the Autodesk website.